Judge rejects plea in McHenry murder

A McHenry County judge delivered a scathing rebuke to county prosecutors and a murder suspect's defense team today after again rejecting a plea bargain proposal.

In a lengthy, sternly worded statement from the bench, Judge Sharon Prather told lawyers for Kenneth Smith and the McHenry County State's Attorney's office that they "are dangerously close to serious ethical violations" for proposing a plea deal she believes unjust.

"For this court to accept this would be a manifest injustice to the people of McHenry County and in particular the family of the victim," Prather said. "The state and defense are asking this court to distort the facts of this case. I will not."

Attorneys for Smith declined comment on Prather's remarks. The case's lead prosecutor, Assistant McHenry County State's Attorney David Johnston, said he would comment later today.

Prather's statements come about six weeks after she first rejected a proposed plea bargain that would allow Smith, 31, to go free after serving another 11ˆ¨ years in prison for the slaying of Lakemoor businessman Raul Briseno.

Authorities say Smith, of Park City, shot the 35-year-old Briseno to death in March 2001 during a botched holdup of the victim's Burrito Express restaurant in McHenry.

Smith was sentenced to 67 years in prison in 2003 after a jury convicted him of first-degree murder and attempted armed robbery, but an appellate court overturned the verdict a year later.

Since then, prosecutors say, the case against Smith has gotten weaker because of witnesses dying, disappearing or turning uncooperative. Those difficulties, they say, led to a deal with Smith's defense under which he would plead guilty to second-degree murder and attempted armed robbery charges and receive a 35-year sentence.

With credit for time served and likely day-for-day good time credit, Smith would go free in about 11ˆ¨ years.

Prather, who presided over Smith's 2003 trial, said Friday she could not accept that deal because the evidence of the case does not support a second-degree murder charge. The charge typically is used in cases in which a murder is committed unintentionally.

"To accept a plea that is not justified by the facts and circumstances of this case would undermine the principles of our legal system, and this court will not be a part of it," she said.

Members of Briseno's family, who in September blasted county prosecutors for offering Smith the deal, said they had mixed feelings about Prather ongoing refusal to accept the plea.

"We eventually want to bring closure to this and get on with our lives, but there is a hope that if this goes to trial (Smith) will get a longer sentence," Briseno's sister, Maria Carrera, said.

In a another unusual twist Friday, Briseno's family members said they have tracked down an eyewitness to the murder who prosecutors believed had fled the country. Eduardo Pardo, a Burrito Express cook working the night of the murder, is living in Louisiana and willing to return to McHenry County to testify, Carrera said.

Prosecutors had said their inability to locate Pardo was one of the reasons they believed a plea deal necessary.